There are so many people to credit with contributing significantly to this poetic, gorgeous 1979 movie. There’s Melissa Mathison, who crafted the screenplay adaptation, her first, before moving on to a little film called E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. imagined the original novel about this story of a boy and a horse. Carroll Ballard, who directed The Black Stallion beautifully, and Francis Ford Coppola, its executive producer, who brought the movie to the marketplace with its allegories and long silent passages intact. But most of all, thank cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, the director of photographer whose moving images in this film are precisely that. Deschanel’s other cinematographer jobs include Being There, The Right Stuff, The Natural and Fly Away Home – visual masterpieces all. And right now, the director of photography behind The Black Stallion is working on another movie prominently involving animals: The Lion King.